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This is very exciting: Turkey has tons of cool geology, and a modicum of cool history as well. Anyone have any suggestions for stuff I should do/see/visit while there? Anything you particularly want to see geoblogged? Any “assignments”?

Lily and I only have two weeks, so we will be sticking to western Turkey (Mount Ararat will have to wait), so bear that in mind.

I’ll be back in Turkey in October for the Tectonic Crossroads conference, and (I anticipate) at a later time, too: I really want to climb Mount Ararat, but I figure I’ll need at least a week to get out there, climb the mountain, and get back to civilization. So: that will have to wait.

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Hey just got back from two and a half weeks in Turkey. The geology is absolutely amazing. I would assign you the Cappadocia region, stay in Goreme, as it’s closest to the fairy chimney formations.
Pamukkale is another amazing place, hydrothermal travertine steps that rival mammoth in yellowstone. And you can walk on it.. really weird coming from Canada where you can look but not touch.
Hope you have a great time!

Didn’t do the balloon ride.. it’s pretty pricey, the people I spoke with that did it said it was great however. If your in goreme find the big cell/radio tower (you can see it from town) and climb up that hill. It has the best view of the valley. Also the horse back rides through the valley are pretty fun. Make sure you just spend a day wondering through the area there are easy walking trails and some of the abandoned cave houses are accessible so you can climb up into them.

Oh and if your going to the coast, around Antalya, there are some amazing metamorphics mountain ranges, some of the coolest I’ve seen.

We’re planning on doing the horse ride too: my girlfriend is really into horses. I’ll look into your beach recomendation: we were going to beach it around Seljuk (Ephesus)… Maybe I cane reconfigure that plan.

I second spending time wandering in the Cappadocia region. I have been lucky to visit there quite a bit as my sister was living in Ankara for a while. Every time I went I found new things. The geology is amazing, but so too is the engineering of the underground tunnels